Burnsville Just Misses Knocking Off No. 1 BSM in Boys Lacrosse State Semifinal

Top-ranked Benilde-St. Margaret’s will be going for its second straight title – and third overall – when the Red Knights square off against familiar rival Eden Prairie Thursday.

The top-seeded and undefeated Red Knights advanced with a harder-than-expected 11-10 win over an unranked Burnsville team that played its best lacrosse of the season under wilting heat Tuesday evening.

“We gave it all we could,” said Burnsville head coach Jesse Schelitzche, whose team came in with seven straight wins. “You know we’ve been playing well and our guys wanted it. We knew we had a lot to prove because everybody kind of expected Benilde to roll over us, at least that was our perspective. And we gave them a good run.”

Benilde-St. Margaret’s (17-0) will meet second-seeded and No. 3 Eden Prairie (15-2) for the Minnesota State High School League boys lacrosse championship finals Thursday in a game starting at 8 p.m.at Chanhassen High School.

“We’re going to have to step it up a lot and clean up a lot of things,” said BSM senior midfielder Taylor Topousis who led the Red Knights with three goals. “We need to play team defense better and go harder for ground balls.”

Eden Prairie edged fourth-seeded White Bear Lake (12-5) 6-5 in the second game Tuesday, a game that was also surprisingly closer than many expected.

BSM defeated Eden Prairie 10-6 on April 25 early in the regular season.

Burnsville trailed 11-7 with 7:44 to play, but outscored the Red Knights 2-0 in the games final minutes to put a scare into the defensing state champions.

The Benilde-St. Margaret’s-Burnsville matchup was pushed back an hour with a 7 p.m. start time to avoid some of Tuesday’s scoring heat. But it was still played in near 100 degree weather at the start.

“With the weather the way it was and as good as Burnsville was playing and how we came out in the first half, it would have been easy for these guys to give up and pack it in,” said Benilde-St. Margaret’s head coach Colin Mulcahy. “But they wanted it and came out and finished the game.”

Benilde-St. Margaret’s had beaten the Burnsville Blaze 15-5 to open the regular season, but that was against a Burnsville team that was missing several of its best players. The Blaze showed quickly and thoroughly Tuesday that they were a much different team that the one the Red Knights had handled easily in the opener.

The Blaze scored the first two goals of the game to give notice that they were going to give the Red Knights a battle. And they did throughout. Burnsville led 2-0, 3-1 and 5-3 in the first half before Benilde-St. Margaret’s got its offense clicking. The two teams were tied at 6-all at the break.

The Red Knights came out strong in the third quarter, scoring three goals in a four minutes span and taking a 9-6 lead with 8:17 to play in the third period. BSM led 11-7 with 8:34 remaining in the game, but the Blaze refused to go down quietly.

Goals by Kyle Kappel (7:44), Brian Atkinson (1:58) and Bohdi Engum (:56) brought the Blaze to within 11-10. The Red Knights successfully played keep-a-away the rest of the game to advance to the finals.

“We just did a lot of things well,” said Burnsville coach Schelitzche. “A lot of things we’ve been stressing that we haven’t necessarily done well in certain games, we did tonight and it worked. Our guys really played their brains out.”

Engham, a senior midfielder, had four goals to lead the Blaze, while Atkinson, another senior midfielder, had three, Kappel, Jake Maxson and Jace Childs one each for Burnsville.

“We definitely stepped up to the challenge,” said Schelitzche. “Benilde is kind of everybody’s No. 1 and we’ve been playing our best lacrosse toward the end of the season. We played as a team, we played hard, we played focused and I couldn’t ask for anything more.”

Topousis scored the last two goals for Benilde, which proved to be the margin of victory. Christian Rekow and Christian Horn had two each, while Peter Schubloom, Simon Gondeck, Jack Baughtin and Robbie Lance had one goal apiece.

Topousis and Benilde senior defenseman Zach Silvestri admitted the game was closer than they expected.

“Way closer, “said Topousis. “But then again its state and everyone comes out to play. Once we got it down and we settled down on offense we were clicking really well. We really could do what we wanted to on offense and that’s what worked the best.”

“We knew they were going to be a quality team,” said Silvestri. “They were missing some guys the first time we played them. I think they definitely played as a team, and played maybe a little bit above what we thought. But we knew coming in they were going to be a good team and they made the plays they had to, and we were just able to make a few more.”

BSM junior attacker and leading scorer Will Hoesley was shut out by the tight Blaze defense. But good passing by the Red Knights opened up the rest of the offense.

“Usually Will’s able to find his points here and there, but Burnsville did a great job of limiting him, so that’s where the rest of our guys had to step up and produce,” said Mulcahy.

“Definitely we were moving off the ball on our offensive end,” said Silvestri. “That’s how we scored the majority of our goals, guys working together; we didn’t have a lot of doing it themselves. We played as a team on offense, which is one of the things we need to step up on defense to win on Thursday.”

Burnsville (11-7) will play White Bear Lake in the third place game, starting at 6 p.m. Thursday, also at Chanhassen High School.

Burnsville                               3          3          1          3          --          10

Benilde-St. Margaret’s          2          4          4          1          --         11